The ultimate result he envisaged would not be a single world state (a civitas gentium) created by a single treaty (pactum pacis), but a peaceful union or federation (foedus pacificum) that “maintains itself, prevents wars, and steadily expands.”

His major treatises on pacifism, Dulce bellum inexpertis and Querela pacis, present the case for pacifism and against war through citations and analyses of biblical passages, not through rationalistic proofs, though they do regard war as irrational as well as un-Christian.

This was his Querela pacis (The Complaint of Peace), written about a year after the adage Dulce bellum at the request of his most influential and helpful patron at the time, Jean Le Sauvage, chancellor of Burgundy and Castile.